I know, this recipe is so late that it’s early, but bear with me. My exams have ended and I’ve been too busy doing nothing. Strangely enough, all this while my life was filled to brimming with novels I was reading, projects I was knitting, long walks I was taking, guitar skills I was honing and the myriad of little errands you have to run to keep things running smoothly. Now that I am truly able to do anything I want without having to consider other things I should be doing instead (things like studying or working on assignments) I don’t want to do anything. I spent most of yesterday staring at my toes as I sat on the couch and it looks as though today won’t be any different. I couldn’t even cobble together an elaborate meal (did I tell you about that Spaghetti Marinara I made the day before an exam that involved slow roasted veggies and 6 different kinds of seafood each with their own individual cooking times?) with any enthusiasm. Lately I’ve been favouring lightning-fast meals that take the same amount of time to prepare as it does to buy from a take-out, but that are much, much better. With this in mind, may I present for your consideration:

To all the lousy atheists who may come across this site by the way of the Pullman-is-an-atheist post, here’s a little Christmas present from me to you. (Or should I say, happy holiday present instead?)

Blogger John Scalzi visits the Creationist Museum in Kentucky and gives us a 101-picture set on the awesomeness of intelligent design.

This trilogy is collectively referred to as His Dark Materials and has been in the news of late because the movie based on the first book is to be released on December 7th of this year. As I have previously mentioned, the fundies are up in arms about books with such potent ideas and have launched a spam-paign (yes, that’s an email spam campaign) against His Dark Materials alleging that castration and female circumcision appear in the books (they don’t, read my last post for more details) and that the protagonists “kill God” (they don’t, at least not really. When will these illiterate, facile people learn to read?!). With this in mind, I present to you a spoiler-free, honest review of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. Buy the books, read them, then buy copies for everyone you know. These books could start thought revolutions, and that is what has gotten those forwarding flocks of sheep shit scared.

Well, that’s it then. We should all gather in the town square to burn the books as we dance naked around the flames. Information is dangerous! If people have information, then they might start to think, and to question and then HOLY SHIT PEOPLE! Are you even remotely aware of what would happen if everyone were an independent thinker? If everyone was given all the information they needed to make decisions FOR THEMSELVES (and not as part of some collective hive-mind)? It’s getting harder and harder to oppress the unwashed masses as it is!

You know what’s worse than a book with information that endangers the world as we know it? A MOVIE BASED ON THAT BOOK. You know what’s even worse? If the people who made the movie TONED DOWN some of the book’s heretical messages so that people will be TRICKED INTO BUYING AND POSSIBLY READING THE BOOK. The world as we know it could end on or around December 7th 2007 (depending on how long it will take the unwashed masses to read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. Personally, it took me 4 days, but I’m a pretty fast reader. I wouldn’t seriously worry until at least a week later).

Christians like feeling persecuted. Trust me, we do. It makes us feel better that there are a great many forces out there that disadvantage us. Plus, there is a certain romantic passion that comes with facing down our enemies as a united mass. That universal yearn to be martyred (without the attendant inconvenience of death) is fuelling an email campaign against Nicole Kidman’s latest outing to the silver screen. The two emails (sourced from snopes.com[1]) currently making the rounds are below the cut.

Winter is descending fast in the Northern Hemisphere and, for reasons that I do not care enough about to enumerate here, I am forsaking the sun-bathed beaches of Australia for the drizzle-soaked grey of British Columbia, Canada for the next two months. A tragedy like this calls for stew; some serious, blood-warming, soul-fortifying liquid life in a bowl. The issue of what to serve with stew is a serious one. There is the stew=centre stage crew who believe that you should have a side of mashed potatoes (plain) or broad flat noodles, a real canvas and paint situation. Then there is the camp I belong to (and there are very few of us around, as I understand it) that believe that whatever you serve your stew with should be able to stand-alone. Don’t misunderstand, I’m not talking about two competing flavours here. What I am talking about is two separate dishes that are excellent, singly, but explode into an orgy of amazing-ness when paired. With this in mind, may I present for your consideration: